More Netting Is Not Likely in M.L.B. This Season, Rob Manfred Says

SEATTLE — Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, mentioned he didn’t anticipate groups to make modifications to the protecting netting in their ballparks this season, although he mentioned he anticipated conversations to proceed about whether or not netting needs to be prolonged.

Manfred’s feedback on Tuesday got here lower than every week after a younger baby was struck by a foul ball at a recreation in Houston and hospitalized. Manfred mentioned that structural points in every stadium would make it tough to mandate modifications throughout the season, however that the incident at Minute Maid Park would result in conversations into the low season.

[Read extra: A Foul Ball, an Injured Little Girl and Another Cycle of Anguish]

During that recreation, final Wednesday, Cubs outfielder Albert Almora Jr. hit a line drive into the field-level stands down the third-base line that struck a younger woman. Manfred mentioned that the Astros had primarily been in communication with the woman’s household, and that the workforce had then up to date the commissioner.

“Look, I think it is important that we continue to focus on fan safety,” Manfred mentioned. “If that implies that the netting has to transcend the dugouts, so be it. Each ballpark is completely different. The cause I hesitate with ‘beyond the dugout,’ I imply, loads of golf equipment are past the dugout already. But there’s a stability right here.

“We do have followers which might be vocal about the truth that they don’t need to sit behind nets. I feel that we now have struck the stability in favor of fan security to this point, and I feel we’ll proceed to try this going ahead.”

Following suggestions from M.L.B., all 30 groups by the beginning of the 2018 season had expanded their protecting netting to no less than the far ends of the dugouts after a number of followers had been injured by foul balls in 2017. The newest harm has renewed the controversy about whether or not protections ought to go down the foul traces.

“It’s very difficult given how far the clubs have gone with the netting to make changes during the year because they really are structural issues,” Manfred mentioned. “But because safety is so important, I’m sure that conversation will begin and continue into the off-season.”

Manfred was in Seattle as a part of a West Coast enterprise journey, but in addition to fulfill with the Mariners proprietor John Stanton, who has taken over as chairman of the competitors committee.